Preservationists Mobilize to Shoot Down Lion Hunt

A coalition of wildlife preservation groups opposed to the sport hunting of mountain lions on Wednesday began what promises to be a fierce fight against the California Fish and Game Department’s proposal to allow the killing of as many as 210 of the animals this year.

Spokesmen for several groups said they would use testimonials from movie stars, meetings with editorial boards and public service announcements on radio to rally the public against the proposal for the first sport hunting of the lions in 15 years.

In addition, Assemblyman Tom Bates (D-Oakland) has introduced legislation that would take the decision out of the hands of the Fish and Game Commission by reinstating a ban on hunting the lions, commonly known as cougars. Gov. George Deukmejian vetoed similar legislation in 1985.

“There are just too many unanswered questions about the mountain lion to open up a trophy hunting season,” said Sharon Negri, director of the Mountain Lion Preservation Foundation.

Negri and others--including representatives of the Mountain Lion Coalition and the Defenders of Wildlife--question the state’s assertion that there are at least 5,100 mountain lions in California. They said the Fish and Game Department’s studies of the lion population are inadequate because they use field studies of small areas to generalize about the number of lions living in broad regions.

“The department is ignoring the fact that habitats change, elevations change, you have cities right in the middle of some habitat areas, rural subdivisions and serious grazing operations, all of which affect the area available for lions,” said Bill Yeates, lobbyist for the Mountain Lion Coalition.

The department’s plan divides the state into five hunting zones and calls for the issuance of 20 tags, or permits, in the southern zone, which stretches from Los Angeles south to the Mexican Border and includes all of Orange County. Although the zone encompasses more than 16,000 square miles, mountain lions are thought to roam only through about one-fourth of the area. The state estimates there are about 400 lions in the zone.

Terry Mansfield, assistant chief of the Fish and Game Department’s Division of Wildlife Management, said the department does not know what effect, if any, the hunting would have on the lions in and around Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness Park in southern Orange County, where 5-year-old Laura Michele Small and 6-year-old Justin Mellon were mauled in separate attacks last year. Generally, Mansfield said, the lion population would be expected to replace, through natural processes, any lions killed in a given area.

Taucher Undecided

Fish and Game Commission President Albert C. Taucher said Wednesday that he had not decided whether to vote in favor of a hunting season. But Taucher said the population studies performed by the department’s staff appeared to be thorough.

“I think biologically they (the department’s analysts) have a good point,” Taucher, a former Long Beach sporting goods store owner, said. “It looks like the department has done their homework very well.”

Opponents of the plan concede, however, that they would probably be against the hunt even if they agreed that the state had learned all there was to know about the lions.

“The issue is the propriety of a wealthy businessman using someone else’s skilled dogs so he can saunter up at his leisure and shoot a lion off a tree branch,” said Richard Spotts, lobbyist for Defenders of Wildlife. “The sportsmen say it’s their right to engage in this so-called sport, and we disagree.”

The coalition has distributed 238 tapes to radio stations featuring actor Robert Redford appealing to the public to contact Deukmejian and the Fish and Game Department. Today, actress Tippi Hedren is scheduled to appear at a Los Angeles news conference called by the coalition. The Fish and Game Commission will hold its first public hearing on the proposal during a regularly scheduled meeting that begins at 8 a.m. Friday at Long Beach City Hall, 333 West Ocean Blvd.

Foundation’s Contentions

Negri said the anti-hunt campaign will stress the foundation’s contention that the proposed hunting season is not intended to protect livestock or the public from any danger the lions pose.

Instead, she said, the proposed hunt was triggered by a change in state law Jan. 1, 1986, classifying mountain lions as game mammals and allowing the commission to regulate the hunting of the big cats, just as it does for bear, deer, elk and other mammals.

State animal depredation laws for many years has allowed the killing of lions considered a danger to the public or suspected of preying on livestock. But mountain lions, for whose hides the state once paid a bounty, were protected under a moratorium imposed by the Legislature from 1972 until the end of 1985.

“We don’t object to the continued taking of lions through depredation laws and for public safety purposes,” Spotts said. “We’re trying to get the commission to distinguish between the management of lions to protect livestock or public safety versus, in the case of 210 lion tags, the killing of lions for fun.”